VANITY: Troll Hunting Season

11.15.2010 | Me, myself, and I

[Third Person]

I know, I know, another vanity, but...

I've been lurking here since '03, [and signed up in '08] and I can't remember another time when so many trolls were on FR.

Am I off here, or or is FR directly over the target?

BTW MOD, DON'T ZOT ME!

[DJ MacWoW]

Yup. And it’s going to get worse. If I don’t recognize a posting name, I check history. Some recent zots had lots of innocent posts when they first signed up and nothing for months or years. Posting history usually tells the story.

[Windflier]

counterpunch

No kidding? Wow. I was just having a knock-down-drag-out with him the other night.

[darkwing104]

Could you post a recent [last 3 weeks or so] ZOT history?

The Zots vs. Antizots debates are nothing new. Most of the troublemakers tend to be repeat offenders and they always make themselves known.

On average, I get an at least a dozen requests a day for the Viking kitty ping. Calling for a Zot or the kitties will not always be answered. Most of the time I don't bother because a dust up with other FReepers don't usually lead up to a zot; I don't wish to be perceived as being a bully and I don't want to make the mods angry at me.

The only people who can Zot (Ban) someone is Jimrob or the mods. I know they get a lot more complaints than I do.

As for the number of trolls they come and go in cycles sometime daily or we may go weeks without seeing any.

Anyway, if you want to see the zots just type the Keyword "Zot" in the Search box in the upper right hand corner.

[DJ MacWoW]

Yeah. He decided to get into a knock down dragout with the wrong person.

Some zots are in Jim's posting history.

[Third Person]

Thank you!

[Persevero]

“Conservatives believe in the rule of law. But if the power to regulate something specific is not delegated to the Feds then that power goes to the States or the People, so the decisions on drugs, porn, prostitution etc. should be made locally and not federally. In no way does the Constitution imply that there should be no laws against them whatsoever. (IANAL.) “

I agree. I don’t even mind if someone takes a Libertarian position on it for whatever reason. What I do resent is being told, usually very nastily, that I am not a conservative when I don’t take a Libertarian position.

Libertarians and Conservatives meet on the “limited government” issue, although we may occasionally view its application differently.

We disagree greatly on social issues and often on foreign policy issues.

[Publius6961]

What is actually meant by “trolls” anyway? Is it the guys pimping blogs?

No.

Usually they are liberals, progressives, and DU tpes joining in groups (reinforcing each other) pretending to be conservatives, pro-God and pro-Country, but their posts and their arguments, sooner or later, betray them.

[rbmillerjr]

“Next you’ll say I am an anti-Catholic bigot or some other leftist slop.”

This is a zot thread not a Religion thread.

[vigilante2]

[Publius6961]

Now you tell us!

[Windflier]

Yeah. He decided to get into a knock down dragout with the wrong person.

I'll say .. LOL

[darkwing104]

Now you tell us!

Its no secret...besides you wouldn't believe the Freepmail I get when I ping the kitties too many times...

[stockpirate]

I only commented to somemone else and was jumped on for what I said.

[Publius6961]

Its no secret...besides you wouldn't believe the Freepmail I get when I ping the kitties too many times...

Whatever you say, sir.

[stocksthatgoup]

What I hate most are post that are way too large to read. They often run several thousand words with images that eat up thousands of acres.

[50mm]

Its no secret...besides you wouldn't believe the Freepmail I get when I ping the kitties too many times...

That's why the last couple of pings I combined two ZOTs in one post.

[Mad Dawg]

First, I think it's good to distinguish thus: Christian, Christian in error, heretic Christian, non-Christian.

Second, I'm a convert to the Calflick church. Swam the Tiber 12/26/94. But as a former Episcopalian priest of a Calvinist bent and as, oh, I don't know, a guy who reads stuff, I had read significant chunks of Aquinas and other Catholics.

I know the kind of thing that Catholic writers say that leads one to think that there has to be something like a foundation of grace with works built on it. But here's what I think is the problem, or how it looks to me.

On the rare occasions when I do something halfway right, nobody is more surprised than I am. Not the best example would be when (when I was still preaching) when I would get the kind of sermon feedback that leaves one with the strong impression that God moved in your hearer's heart. The thing that happened to the hearer was WAY out of proportion to anything that I did. The only generalization I could make is that when I clambered down from the pulpit and wanted nothing more than to buy a one way bus ticket to the antipodes and to leave no forwarding address, That would be when somebody would greet me at the church door, on the verge of tears, wringing my hand or embracing me, and say that that was exactly what he needed to hear that day.

I mean, I know I worked. I researched the Scriptures, I prayed, I wrote drafts and tore them up, etc. But that had no clear connection to what God had done in the hearer's life.

It SEEMS some work is necessary. I wouldn't have felt right breezing into the pulpit having done nothing. But I can't say that MY work produced the result.

Then take it down a level: My sense that I ought to do SOME preparation, that it would be kind of cheating otherwise, where did that come from? And how did it get me out of the barco lounger and to my desk? The gifts, if any, I have of articulation, of making myself heard, of speaking any language understandable by men, ALL these are gifts and graces.

TO me the opposition between "works" and "grace" while certainly very and importantly meaningful in, say, Romans or Galatians (or almost any place else you care to look) is, I think, overdrawn. We are "created in Christ Jesus," say Paul in Ephesians, "for good works prepared for us beforehand that we should walk in them."

To me this adds credence to my hunch that works are graces. Or that they are in a way identical to salvation. That is, we don't do good works so that we may be saved, but being saved includes doing good works.

Of course, I am blessed in the preachers I hear. But a common theme is that it is ALL gift and grace. Even what we confusingly call "merit," is gift.

Catholicism teaches definite behaviors are required to achieve salvation.I am not sure that is strictly accurate. The phrase "ordinarily necessary" is used, and it implies that there may be extraordinary situations in which these behaviors are not necessary.

FWIW. Just how it looks from here. And this may not be a good place to go over the work/grace thing. It just seemed moderately less bloody than the religion forum.

[MontaniSemperLiberi]

1 On the third day a wedding took place at Cana in Galilee. Jesus’ mother was there, 2 and Jesus and his disciples had also been invited to the wedding. 3 When the wine was gone, Jesus’ mother said to him, “They have no more wine.”

4 “Woman,[a] why do you involve me?” Jesus replied. “My hour has not yet come.”

5 His mother said to the servants, “Do whatever he tells you.”

6 Nearby stood six stone water jars, the kind used by the Jews for ceremonial washing, each holding from twenty to thirty gallons.[b]

7 Jesus said to the servants, “Fill the jars with water”; so they filled them to the brim.

8 Then he told them, “Now draw some out and take it to the master of the banquet.”

http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=John+2%3A1-11&version=NIV

[MontaniSemperLiberi]

BTW - I think you’re being very fair about the different flavors of Catholicism. Catholics will chide other Christians for making up their own Christianities and others will chide Catholics for sampling from their church cafeteria style.

The truth is that there are old school Catholics, Animal loving Catholics, Charismatic Catholics (yes, speaking in tongues at Catholic Churches), etc. etc.

[ArrogantBustard]

Thanks. Learn something new every day.